Aubade Coffee

Our Rating

10
Coffee

10
Price

8
Location

10
Venue

10
Staff

Aubade Coffee started life as a pop up shop, and has now expanded into one of the most interesting places in Vancouver to drink coffee. Located inside one of the most unique venues I’ve ever seen, it’s stylish but relaxed, very coffee focused but not pretentious and has a highly skilled barista/owner but lacks the arrogant price tag of other high end shops. I have to say, it’s a contender for the best coffee shop in the city and definitely one of the best I’ve ever been to in the world.

Coffee

Aeropress – $5
For those of you unfamiliar with an AeroPress
it’s a cylindrical plastic device that uses hand pressure to force hot water through ground coffee beans. You end up with a really quickly made and delicious cup of filter coffee from a device that’s so portable and so easy to clean that you can take it hiking and make fresh coffee on the top of a mountain if you like!

Eldric, the owner, won third in the Canadian Aeropress championships this year, so it’s safe to say he knows what he’s doing. Watching him create your coffee is almost as enjoyable as drinking it! He splits the coffee into three containers then mixes them all in certain ratios to create possibly the most well balanced cup of coffee I’ve ever had. The coffee beans are sourced from some of the most interesting high end roasters the world has to offer.

Long White (Coconut, Rice, Soy and Buckwheat milk blend) – $4
A relatively new addition to the coffee lineup at Aubade are espresso based drinks. The same attention to detail is given to these beans; in this case 32 Lakes supplied the espresso roast. The star of this drink was the in house non dairy milk blend. It was amazingly textured with a nice sweetness that offset the espresso strength nicely. I should add in to this that somehow Eldric has managed to tame the beast that is Soy milk! There was no separation at all.

Food

I seem to be pretty unlucky with my visits as I keep missing the pastry and sweets lineup, but Aubade offer a selection of treats to enjoy with your drinks. As such I’ll be leaving this score out until I have the chance to taste the food.

Location

It’s in the heart of Chinatown with a Skytrain station nearby, a multitude of buses, car share spots and short walk from the seawall.

Venue

Aubade Coffee is actually in a very unique venue called Space Lab. It’s part coffee shop, part antique/vintage store, part barber shop! I’d challenge you to find a more interesting venue than this in Vancouver. Aubade Coffee has taken over the front of the store and have custom built a seating area along with storage, shelving and hanging planters! Interestingly, a lot of this was built from scavenged and re purposed parts, such as the wooden doors secured to the wall with iron pipes.
There are seats at the coffee bar as well as some table seating and the occasional sofa around. Outside seating is provided in the warmer months.

Staff

Can’t get much better than Eldric – he’s happy and friendly, incredibly knowledgeable, gets you involved in the brewing process and has traveled internationally to learn his craft. His passion about coffee really shines through and it was great to see him get excited to show me one of his coffee making gadgets (a refractometer). He often holds coffee classes and brewing sessions, so it’s great to see someone giving back to the community in this regard.

Share on

The Vancouver Coffee Snob is the highest rated coffee reviewer there has ever been on this site. Which makes sense really, as he's the only one posting on here.
His reviews should, at best, not be trusted and there's no substance to the rumor that he has a jar of instant coffee in his kitchen.
Ultimately his heart is in the right place. Physically that is... he's actually a bit of imbecile in person.